And Hillary Clinton drinks beer with gusto.
I like that.
Her husband didn't drink beer.
Not really.
Same as Donald J Trump, who is a tee-totaler, because sex is his thing.
According to a GOP operative I know and I prefer hanging out with beer drinkers than sex maniacs.
The former know their limit.
And sex freaks are out of control.
Especially blonde seekers.
Two years ago my friend, Pi-Noi, brought his work crew down from Ban Nok to install an air-conditioning system in a Pattaya bar. The 400-kilometer drive gave them a healthy thirst and that night under my mango tree we drank a case of Chang Beer. Nearing midnight the bottles were empty, but the out-of-towners wanted more and I introduced them to cheap Russian vodka.
The aficionados of lao khao downed the liter in minutes. The only evidence of being mao was the cranking up of the stereo volume and Pi-Noi asked for me to tell a ghost story.
"Pii ni-Thann?"
"Chaii." Thais love ghost story.
""Yes, very funny you tell in Thai." Pi-Noi has long claimed that I’m the last surviving speaker of Neanderthal Thai and another plastic bag of Lao magically appeared. Pi-Noi's friend poured a full glass of the white fire.
"Dhim."
I drank as commanded and launched into a ghost tale about a underwater photo shoot in
Another plastic bag of Lao magically appearederwater photo shoot. LIFE had hired my friend as a photo assistant to shoot the female lead of SPLASH in bathing suits and bikinis. I had never heard of the actress and neither had my Thai friend, although when I mentioned she was the star in a comedy about a mermaid falling in love with a mortal man, everyone sat up straight in the shadows under the mango tree.
“Ngeuuak?” asked Pi-Noi.
“Ngeuuak.” The mermaid myth was known to every sea-going culture.
“Suay?”
“Suay mak.” Darryl Hannah was a blonde goddess. The photographer was working to seduce her. I explained to the Thais that I was his ‘thaat’ or slave. They understood this term, since all Thais had been slaves until 1095.
“We stayed at an old hotel. Hotel have ghost.”
“Pee ngeuuak?” Thais have scores of designation for ghosts; phee phohng ‘evil spirit’ phraai water ghost, bpee saat or ‘animal ghost’ et al.
“No, ghost old lady,” I continued how the actress had complained about a female ghost entering her room. She was barely visible. Her words were echoes. The encounter frightened the actress, who wanted to sleeping my room.
“Sex with mermaid, good.”
“No, my friend is jealous. Says he won’t pay me, if I sleep with me.”
“Farang kee-nok.”
“Yes, he was bird shit. I get revenge by drinking rhum. I drink lots of Rhum.” 150 proof quelled the disappointment of not having sex with a movie star. “Mao mak. I go sleep. Someone touches my shoulder. I think it’s puying farang suay.”
I really had thought it was Darryl Hannah.
Instead my visitor was a long-haired apparition of an 80 year-old woman.
“Mai puying suay. Phi gair. Phee.”
I acted out the part of an ectoplasmic old lady.
“Guah.” Pee-Noi and his crew shivered with collective fear.
“Not scared. Mao.” I dismissed the old ghost and fell back to sleep in a drunken stupor. The tale was meant to be funny, but at its end Pi-Noi demanded with a chill, “Ching?”
“True 100%. The ghost was as real as you or me.”
“You sex with her?”
“No way.” I was too drunk to do anything but tell her to fuck off.
“Mai shua.” He preferred to think that I had made love to a ghost.
A really old ghost.
His friends told it was funny, but Pi-Noi rolled his eyes.
“Didn’t you like my story?”
His face was set with anger. “You don’t make fun of ghosts.”
“They do in the movies.” Thais at the Big C Theater roared hilariously about headless ghosts chasing fools through the night. I laughed too.
“Not same. This your house.”
“You believe in ghosts?”
Pi-Noi shrugged, as if he take them or leave them.
"I only scared my wife."
"I understand that."
I was scared of his wife too.
And I suspect so were most ghosts, then again my Irish blood grants a special affinity for spirits and I don’t disrespect the beliefs of this or any country.
Every year thousands of Thais and tourists line the Mekong River to view the glowing gas balls floating into the air from the mythical Naga creature. Temple steps are often decorated by a representation of this serpent. Farangs tend to deride the Thais’ belief in creatures eating your intestines or a greedy man doomed to wander eternity with a worm-sized mouth without taking into consideration that 65% of Americans believe in guardian angels.
While not 100% convinced, I really did see a ghost in Jamaica and ten years ago during a visit to Isaan with my one-eyed girlfriend we drove to a mae-mod or witch’s house. The old crone’s house was located beyond the electrical grid. A score of women sat in the candle-lit hut listening to their fortunes, while men lingered nervously outside. At one point the oldest women were assembled in a circle. Lots were chosen and the most wrinkled of them was led into the jungle by two men.
“Where she going?” I asked Vee.
“Women have lottery. See who die so others live longer.”
“They’re going to kill her?”
“No, she picked same woman every time. Other ladies never know or don’t remember.”
It was a scam, but a scary one in this setting.
The next morning a green potion was smeared on the rim of my glass. Vee said it was nothing and I drank some. We were both sick for two days. A year later we broke up and neither of us could leave the other. When I returned to the States for business, I didn’t sleep for three days and sweated out a fever. A Thai friend smiled knowingly and said, “Red-lum.”
“Magic?” Jack Nicholson had said the same in Kubrick’s THE SHINING.
“Red rum.”
‘Murder’ backwards.
He nodded. “At least she drink it too."
Ban-thee."
"Maybe?"
"Thai women like simple magic."
"That they do."
And like that I became a believer. Of course being half-Irish I wake at night to the slightest whisper, because not everything going bump in the night is a thief.
For decades the US Navy exercises shore leave rights at several Thai coastal cities, most infamously. Pattaya on the Gulf of Siam and Phuket on the Indian Ocean. Thousands of sailors and marines embark from their warships to enjoy a holiday of booze and broads. All good harmless fun unless the religious right in America receive news that our fighting men and women might be losing their immortal souls to the free-wheeling fun of these two Babylons and nothing threatens eternal bliss in heaven than a night with a ladyboy, the epitome of wickedness.
Several years ago fearing that the swabbies and jarheads can tell or really don't care whether their companions for this shore leave are female or very attractive 'ka-toeys' or she-males, the Pentagon had requested that the governor of Phuket call for a wave of repression against the Asian nation's exotic women of a second kind.
The famed porn star Moo was caught up in this do-good dragnet. The local police shorned the redhead of her long locks. Her soulmate Wawa was luckier and the two have hit Phuket with revenge in their evil minds.
The CIA investigated the pair for links to terrorists, but each agent sent to catch them came back smelling of ladyboy. Even the women.
Moo and Wawa.
WMD extraordinaire.
ps having sex with a ladyboy is like driving a Vespa. It's a lot of fun until one of your friends see you.
Last Sunday dawn rose fast on the City of Luxembourg. Only two days before I had arrived with the sun's first light on the flight from London and jet lag prevented my sleeping till noon. It was 1AM back in New York.
Madame Ambassador was in her bedroom. No other human was in the embassy.
Only her cat in the guest room.
I pressed my hand to the window.
The lower pane was icy and I dressed accordingly for the cooler weather of Mittel Europa.
I exited from the embassy. The morning was quiet even for Luxembourg.
The ancient city was sleeping outside the embassy, which was perched on a cliff overlooking the chasm of the old fortress. Not a single car was on the viaduct and pedestrians were absent from the sidewalks of Boulevard de FDR. The city's residents were sleeping in warm beds, I had Luxembourg to myself and the crows swirling around the spike spires of Notre Dame Cathedral.
I wandered down the narrow streets of the old city, hoping to find an open cafe.
The only sound of humans was my breathing and I thought to myself, "How could you have spent six months here?"
Madame Ambassador and I had a good time during my sojourn as resident writer.
Parties at the Aston-Martin dealership.
A soiree to commemorate the Battle of the Bulge.
And a great dance night with the RAF.
Come to think about it and that half-year in 2011-2012 were a good time and I headed over to the ramparts. The sun was rising over the EEU buildings in Kitchenburg, but offered little warmth. Thankfully I was wearing my tweeds and became my descent to the casement, fortified against siege until 1862. A few tourists were shooting the valley of the Alzette River. I stepped on a broken wine bottle. The noise startled the two of them. They were Japanese.
Te famed military architect Vauban had expanded the fortifications in the 1600s and the city withstood a siege by the French for seven months earning it the name 'the Gibraltar of the North'.
Not one solider guarded the city this morning. They too were in bed.
People in Luxembourg like their sleep.
My heavy boots crunched on the gravel path along the old mill stream. I imagined myself an Irish exile serving the Prussians. That ghost was only in my head, but closing my eyes the Alzette's babbling vanquished the years. Life was this moment now connected to back then my my daydreams.
Opening my eyes I saw that the Bock casemates glowed in the dawn as they might have to the Roman legions to have come upon this craggy plateau. It was a good site for a fight.
The plaza of St. Jean de Grund was another empty space.
Except for an exquisite Daimler.
Luxembourg is a rich city.
One of the richest in Europe and rich people get to sleep in late on Sundays.
I yawned and said to myself, "Time to join my pillow."
Madame Ambassador and I would have breakfast later.
She had promised me a proper English Breakfast, although she would be up for another hour.
I could wait that long.
The bells of Notre-Dame were ringing out the hour of Eight.
After all I was still the resident writer in Luxembourg and dawn was still five hours away from New York.
As a child I had been entranced the the legend of the magic carpet. My mother thought I was funny sitting on the carpet in the living room, trying to fly it like a plane. I was not kidding, so when my father came home from work in April of 1965 to say that his company, Ma Bell, had offered him a transfer to Iran.
"Persia?"
"They call it Iran now."
The oil-rich country needed skilled communication engineers and my father was one of the best in New England. He sat down my mother and his six children at the kitchen table and proposed that we go overseas for several years.
"It will be a unique experience and the money will be better than here."
"When do we go?" My enthusiasm was sparked by having read THE RUBIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM and the Arabian Nights as well as my eternal desire to get the hell out of the suburbs and dreamed of flying on a magic carpet. Iran used to be Persia. The ruler was called the Shah. The religion was Islam. We would be infidels, which was fine by me.
"We'd leave in the summer." My father unloosened his tie and looked to my mother.
"What about school?"
She had okayed our move from Maine to be closer to her family and have us attended parochial schools.
"There are first-class schools set up for Americans. There are tens of thousands of us there."
My father liked to travel. Every other weekend he packed us into the family station wagon for a trip to an historical site or mountain or beach.
"What about our friends?" my older brother asked the question which I had been fearing.
My younger sisters and brothers chorused the same demand.
"You won't remember your friends in five years," I shouted at them. I was the biggest son. My older brother was only older.
"Like you forgot Shane." This was a cruel blow. My older brother knew how to play dirty.
"That's different." Shane and I were best friends. He had drowned five years ago in Sebago Lake. We had vowed never to go swimming if we weren't together. I had yet to forgive myself.
"No different. Friends are friends." My older brother liked our hometown. He was attending the best all-boy's parochial high school next year. "I didn't get straight As to go to a school half way across the world.".
"I know." My mother expected the same from me. She wanted me to be a priest. I had yet to tell anyone that I was an atheist.
"But Dad said the schools are very good in Iran."
I looked to the Maine native for a dictatorial mandate, except my father had fought in WWII to save democracy and he said, "All those in favor of going to Iran, raise their right hand."
My father and I were the only two in favor.
"All those opposed."
My mother, brothers, and sisters formed a bloc of five. My father refused to veto the majority vote and he put down my mother's arm. She was never going to leave Boston. The change of season was in her blood and our family finished out the19 60s on the South Shore.
My first excursion off the North American continent was to London in 1978. My girlfriend was a blonde model from Buffalo. Some nights she stayed out late with the fashion photographers. My next-door neighbor was an Iranian. His father had been executed by Savak. Mustaf and I drank beer at a bar in Fulham. His friends educated me to the evils of the Shah. I joined them in demonstrations against his regime without telling my girlfriend. Lisa didn't like Muslims, because their mistreatment of women. Mustaf was a communist. He believed in rights for everyone.
I believed the same, until the Shah was overthrown and the student radicals seized hostages at the US embassy in Teheran.
America was America and I was an American.
"Bomb 'em."
The Pentagon tried to free the hostages and failed in the desert.
Jimmy Carter was defeated by Ronald Reagan, who had backdoored an agreement with the mullahs to withhold release of the hostages, so that he could win the presidency.
"We do not deal with terrorists." Old Dutch swore to the country, as his underlings sold arms to the Revolutionary Guards, while supporting Saddam in a desert war.
GW Bush declared Iran to be an Axis of Evil and their president's constant barrage of threat against Israel has racketed the tension of war in the Gulf to a code red danger zone. CNN, NBC, Fox News and all the other right-wing news organization are reporting the build-up of forces to prevent the Iranians from having a nuclear bomb, as if Armageddon was a fait accompli.
"We have built a wide range of options to give the president and we are ready... We are ready today," Vice Admiral Mark Fox said at the headquarters of the 5th Fleet in Manama on Sunday.
"We were ready yesterday." Iran countered on their TV.
And the price of oil soared over the $100/barrel mark enriching Big Oil.
There is no such thing as a free magic carpet ride, although Steppenwolf came close in the late 60s.
To hear MAGIC CARPET RIDE please go to this URL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dFgZy5dRVo&feature=related
Donald Trump has never made his love for beautiful women a secret.
The avid golf cheater even ran beauty pageants.
He once said he would like to date his daughter.
Trump has always leaned toward blondes and once hit on my cousin, who was a Broadway actress. If I had been in the room, I would have whacked the scamming billionaire in the head with a sox filled with pennies and then kicked the ogre while he was down, however this week an audio recording of Billy Bush from 2004 changed my thinking.
The blonde Nazi deserves a bat beating for what he said about Nancy O'Dell, co-host of Access Hollywood.
TRUMP: "I moved on her. Actually, she was down on Palm Beach. I moved on her and I failed. I'll admit it. I did try and fuck her. She was married."
BUSH: "That's huge news."
TRUMP: "I moved on her. Very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said 'I'll show you where they have some nice furniture'. I took her... I moved on her like a bitch. I couldn't get there and she was married. And all of a sudden I see her. She's now got the big phoney tits and she's totally changed her look."
BUSH: "Sheesh, your girl's hot as sh**. In the purple."
TRUMP: "Whoa! Yes! Whoa!"
BUSH: "Yes! The Donald has scored. Whoa, my man! It better not be the publicist. No it's her, it's..."
TRUMP: "Yeah that's her in the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful... I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything."
BUSH: "Whatever you want."
TRUMP: "Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."
No trial for Trump.
Just a beating.
But Dick Cheney gets a bullet to the head.
Mafia style.
Kissinger too.
No mercy, because they are mass murderers.
Obamacare is not perfect.
Monolithic insurance companies control the market.
Their executives aberrantly raise the costs of medicine and hospital care.
Donald Trump excoriated the health system by stating with vehemence, "Obamacare is a total disaster and I promised to replace the ACA with the finest health-care plan there is."
Trump failed to elaborate on his scheme, but it's probably a combination of the GOP's traditional policy on health ie "Drop dead." and Trump's propensity for declaring bankruptcy.
It's his forte.
Although Captain Picard of the Enterprise has a question for Trump.
Also take note that Americans are illing more and more from bad food, compromised water, and polluted air.
More of the GOP's Drop Dead philosophy.
